


No Honour in Dust

by beng



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dragon Age: Origins Quest - The Urn of Sacred Ashes, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Priorities, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: Brosca defiled the Urn of Sacred Ashes, and Wynne left.The duster and the assassin ponder their priorities and drink to the fallout.
Relationships: Female Brosca & Zevran Arainai
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	No Honour in Dust

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written DAO for ages, but I found an old draft and figured I might as well do something with it.  
> Can be read as a simple friendship, or as Zev lowkey taken with an oblivious Brosca ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

_I hope the darkspawn take you. You are no better than them._

Wynne’s parting words burned in Brosca’s mind as she sat by the fire, thoughtlessly peeling off the bark from some twigs that Alistair and Sten had gathered for the fire. The moon shone brightly through the spruces standing guard around the clearing, and only the crackling of the flames penetrated the stillness.

_Not the person I thought… I hoped you to be._

Ugh. What had the goody-two-shoes expected? Brosca was casteless, a ruthless brute, a thug for hire. _Had been_ casteless, but becoming a Grey Warden had not changed the brand on her face: Dust Town was in the marrow of her bones.

To desecrate some bin of ashes and avoid fighting a bloody _high dragon_ and a crowd of zealots? It had been a no-brainer.

Scowling, Natia thought back to Redcliffe castle, to the lifeless body of the Arlessa sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood, the shameful elation on Jowan's face, the stricken look of Bann Teagan as he watched the Arlessa die. That had been another no-brainer. Looking back, maybe she wasn’t exactly proud of that one, but it had been a solution that didn’t require them walking all the way to the Circle Tower and then back again, and talking, asking, intimidating, persuading... Wasting time. And none of her companions had exactly objected, either.

She was a criminal. Her mother was a drunk. Her sister was bound to become a whore, if not some deep lord’s broodmare. That was the life Brosca knew. That was the grim, caged existence of a duster.

Duncan had known what he was getting when he recruited her.

Brosca threw the useless twig into the fire and picked up another one.

_No better than them._

So maybe she had suffered one concussion too many while running errands for Beraht. Maybe it had broken something in her.

Something moved in the shadows outside the small circle of her fire, and she wasn’t surprised to find Zevran prowling the dancing, shivering line between the light and the dark. She must have only noticed him because he wanted her to.

“A silver for your thoughts?” The assassin smirked as he lounged on the ground. His golden eyes glinted like a cat’s in the firelight.

Natia shrugged as she continued to shred the little twig. “Just… stuff.”

For a change, he saved his smart retorts and just raised an eyebrow, inviting her to elaborate.

“Wynne… I’m pissed at something she said.”

“What could she say to upset such a strong-willed woman as you?”

Her eyes flicked up to his. Strong-willed, was it now?

Zevran chuckled, never one to keep silent for long, never a fan of heavy staring contests either. Still, she had come to respect the assassin. She threw the twig in the fire and cupped her hands around her drawn-up knee. The stars above them were as confusing as ever, their movement across the sky a secret to her still, even after almost a year on the surface. Brosca shrugged and simply assumed it might be yet another hour or two before she had to wake Sten for his watch.

“I’m not good with… talking.”

“I often find even pointless rambling helps clear my mind, dear Warden. And you do have a pleasant voice.”

“Zev, I’m glad you can hear anything at all. That rock blast in Haven… I was worried. For all of you.”

“Worried? I’m flattered. Let me enjoy my healed hearing then. Go on. What is on your mind, beautiful?”

“Dust Town,” Natia murmured, staring at her knee. “You speak of the Crows as this gilded cage where excelling would let one achieve a status of sorts, an illusion of… something. My cage was not of gold. It was rotten through and through. Hope was the delusion of the stupid.”

Zevran frowned. “Not even hope for a tasty meal? Handsome payment if you do the job well? What did you live for then?”

“Action, reaction, consequences. You hit me, I break your fucking kneecaps next time I see you. There is no hope, no honour, no dignity. There are no gods, no ancestors looking down on my branded face.”

The elf murmured something under his breath.

Yeah, apparently, it was different topsides. The ancient remains of some long-dead woman mattered, just because people believed in that shit.

“How mind-boggingly stupid did Wynne want me to be?” Natia demanded, suddenly angry again. “Would she really prefer us fighting a bloody _high dragon_ instead of simply getting the job done, quick and clean, and getting the hell out of there? All in the name of… in the name of what exactly?”

At the sound of Zevran’s quiet laughter, she shot him a glare, but found it impossible to stay angry at the elf. He looked so happy and relaxed in the golden firelight. Brosca swallowed thickly. She hadn’t for a moment believed that the floggings, oubliettes, and other bullshit of Crow “training” had never happened to him. And yet, here he was, soaking up the warmth of the fire, optimistic, and cynical, and so strangely loyal. Someone who alone, among all these good, _honourable_ people, might even begin to understand where she was coming from.

“Ah well. I believe she simply got distracted by the opportunity to reclaim such a meaningful artifact. You Wardens have a Blight to stop, no? Would be disappointing if one or both of you died by some backwater zealot’s hand, no?”

Brosca took a deep breath. Zevran was right to remind her.

“In war victory, in peace vigilance, in death sacrifice,” she murmured.

This was not some Chantry mission to set up new pilgrimage routes. This was war, she needed a pinch of the ashes to cure Arl Eamon, to get his help against Loghain, and the Grey Warden creed said nothing about honour, or even goodness.

She stood up and threw some more branches into the fire. Sparks flew in the air, illuminating the clearing.

Staying alive was what mattered. Being faster, stronger, more vicious than the darkspawn. Not “better”. She didn’t need some old mage’s favour, or Alistair’s good opinion. What she needed was the loyalty of companions who’d follow her in battle, like Sten’s and Zevran’s. Practicality like Morrigan’s. The only thing Natia wanted was to secure a place in this strange starlit world and to find means to provide a decent life for her sister and mother, and to get her goddamned _salroka_ out of the Carta's grasp. And if she had to fight a Blight before she was able to get these things done, then fight a Blight she will, and she will either win, or die trying. She had given an oath to the man who had saved her.

“In war, victory,” Zevran winked at her and drank from his leather flask, then offered it to her.

She sat down with him, warm shoulder to warm shoulder, and took a swig of the rich, sweet wine the elf seemed to favour.

The Crow needed to survive this too, she realized. She had to see Zevran live through this whole mess, or any victory would be incomplete.

No, this was not about honour, or hope or whatever other flowery bullshit Leliana and Wynne were spouting. Sometimes, the good guys just had to have bigger fists. And sometimes those fists came with a branded face of a duster or a whoreson of an assassin.

“To victory then.”

\----

"Good must be with fists" is [a poem](https://liricon.ru/dobro-dolzhno-byt-s-kulakami.html) by Stanislav Kunyaev.


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